


Born of Adversity

by firefright, Skalidra



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alpha Slade Wilson, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Forced Partnership, M/M, Omega Jason Todd, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Stranded, Threats, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 00:58:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21244895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skalidra/pseuds/Skalidra
Summary: After being stranded on an alien planet, Jason and Slade are forced to work together to stay alive. Something that might be easier said than done between two people who have always stood on the opposite side of the firing line until now. Add in the fact that Jason's an omega without suppressants and Slade the very image of alpha power that he's always resented, and well, it's about as much a recipe for disaster as it is survival.





	Born of Adversity

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is our fill for the Day 6 SladeRobin week prompt, 'Forced Partnership', and of course there's no better way to make that happen than by stranding your characters on the other side of the galaxy from their friends. Hope you enjoy!

Jason's world filters back in slowly. Too slowly for him to understand, at first, as half his world is orange when his eyes flicker open, and the other half fritzing static. He aches, and _hurts_, and when he takes a breath it rasps like he's been breathing smoke, leaving him coughing it out again almost before it gets to his lungs. That lights up pain in his chest; aching ribs and spine, worst of all.

He's had enough beatings in his life to recognize how one feels, but he doesn't remember—

Yes he does. Alien ships using some kind of teleportation technology as weaponry, flinging him somewhere into space and then blasting the ship with enough force to make every system on it scream a warning at him. Plummeting towards some strange planet, engines and everything else unresponsive, trying to send out a distress call on every channel he could, and…

No, not just him, _them_. Slade. (Strange ally but alien invaders threaten everyone and that was who showed up at the ship to help.) Slade grabbed him. Dragged him away from the console, before…

Fire, pain, blackness and a horrible _crunching_ sound.

They crashed, and somehow he's still breathing. Mostly breathing.

He tries a second inhalation, slower this time, and manages to keep it. With it comes a mess of scents that set his mind spinning, all of them clinging to the back of his throat. _Heavy _alpha scent, first and foremost, tasting like metal and the particular acrid tinge of smoke from a recently fired gun, with a sharp sour edge that his hindbrain immediately focuses on as distress and pain. Then after that, blood, and smoke, also both distressingly intense scents.

His eyes flutter, trying to focus, to make sense of the input he’s getting. He knows that scent, he—

“You awake, kid?” a voice grunts, strained and low, oddly muffled but immediately recognizable.

He swallows, wetting his lips before he tries, “Slade?” It hurts, and it comes out a rasp, but he thinks the words were audible.

Pressure against his upper back, before it shifts to grip the back of his neck, fingers pressing in hard enough he grunts in discomfort. He doesn’t _like _being grabbed by the neck, and he likes it even less when he already aches.

“Kid—” Slade starts, and then stops with a stuttering, deep breath that Jason can feel under him. _Under _him. He’s lying on top of Slade. “If you can move, I need you to get off me, Hood.”

Move? Oh, that’s going to be fun.

Jason takes another careful breath, grunting in both affirmation and exertion as he slowly shifts, feeling out what hurts. Almost everything, is the easy answer, but most of it is just the ache of bruises. His right leg, though, feels like something’s wrenched, at best, and most of his ribs and back feel like something hit him _hard_. Or like he hit something, more likely. But yeah, he can probably move. If he’s careful.

He braces a hand and pushes, and Slade’s hand contracts on his neck hard enough he yelps and collapses back down, which almost drowns out the sharp sound of pain Slade makes.

There’s a ragged gasp of, “Don’t— _Fuck_, just— just roll back, kid.”

“Let _go_,” he grits out, the grip freezing him in place as much as it makes him want to reach back there and claw the skin right off Slade’s hand to get it off him. He can’t— It _hurts_.

The fingers release, and he sucks in a relieved breath as his shoulders ease out of their board-stiff tension. He’s spent a lot of his life learning to shake off instincts like that, but he’s disoriented, and everything fucking hurts, and there’s so much more _power _in Slade’s grip than anyone else that’s gotten a hold like that on him, at least in a long time. He hates feeling that frozen, hates being in the grip of instinct that he can’t fight against or flat out deny.

Carefully, he follows Slade’s order in return and rolls backwards. There’s a small drop, and whatever he rolls onto isn’t an even surface, but it’s not jarring enough to make anything hurt worse than it already did. And now he can see something other than orange; a mess of black smoke and a jagged piece of what he thinks might be the remains of the ship, under a blue sky more richly tinted than most colors he remembers on Earth. At least, he thinks that’s a sky. Shit, that’s not good.

Okay, priorities. His helmet’s fucked, judging by the static. It aches to lift his arms, but he gets one far enough up to fumble at the back of his head, and finally find the latch to make it come loose. It sticks but a yank gets it to open the rest of the way, and he shoves it off to the side. His eyes readjust after a few blinks, spots from the static clearing away. He can hear better now, too. The dull crackle of fires and electricity both, and the much lower, strained breathing of Slade, next to him.

Wait, strained? Slade heals stupidly fast, and he’s got that Ikon suit thing; why would he be breathing like that?

He slowly turns his head, relieved that his neck seems to be fine with the movement. Slade’s lying next to him, as expected, but the suit he can see is torn in some places, singed in others. There’s gaps where it shows skin. He’s not going to claim that he knows a lot about the thing, but Jason’s pretty sure that’s not supposed to be possible, with how it works. The mask of it is off too, Slade’s head resting back against the metal he’s on top of, teeth visibly gritted and soot smeared across his jaw. But none of that—

“Oh _fuck_,” he breathes, staring at the jagged piece of metal sticking up out of Slade’s side. The fucking _big _piece of metal. That’s— Oh _shit_.

Slade grunts, but doesn’t look at him, head still tilted back. He’s seen Slade hurt before, seen him weak, even, but not like this. That’s a big chunk of his side that’s been ripped open, and that’s a _lot _of blood soaked through and around the suit. Too much for any normal person to lose and survive.

How long was he out? How long has Slade been there? No, questions for another time. Right now, they’ve crash landed on some alien planet with god knows what kind of dangers, and he needs Slade up and functional as soon as possible. Impaled on a piece of wreckage and only alive, nevermind conscious, by virtue of being superhuman is not functional.

Getting turned over onto his hands and knees is painful, but he manages. It quickly throws into relief, however, that putting any real weight on his injured leg hurts like a _bitch_, so that’s out of the question, and that makes everything awkward. There’s no way he can carry or frankly even move Slade anywhere without both his legs working, even if he can get that metal out of him. One problem at a time, though. First, dealing with that wreckage. God, he wishes he knew a little more detail about the limits of Slade’s enhancements.

“You gonna bleed out if that comes out of you?” he asks first, sitting sideways to minimize the pressure on his leg. It only helps a little. “Cause unless the med kit from the ship survived I don’t have anything to patch that.”

Another grunt. Which isn’t a helpful answer, but just before he’s about to demand something else Slade grits out, “I’ll be fine. Hurry up and do it already. We already wasted enough time waiting for you to wake up.”

Jason bares his teeth on automatic, but still reaches forward and takes hold of the metal, gripping it tight in his hands. “You might want to hold onto something.” he warns him.

“Kid, will you just shut up and—AAH!”

The piece of debris comes loose from Slade’s side with a gross, wet sound when Jason yanks it. Along with a truly worrying rush of blood.

“Shit,” he mutters, while Slade is still snarling with pain, “Shit, shit, shit.” Without thought or hesitation, he rips off his jacket and presses the leather against the now open wound in an attempt to keep at least a little of that blood on the inside. “I think that may have been a bad idea.”

“It’s fine,” Slade growls, now through clenched teeth, “Just… give me a few minutes.”

Jason’s pretty sure a few minutes isn’t going to cut it, but arguing seems a little pointless at this stage. What other option was there, anyway? Leaving it in wasn’t exactly a good plan either, unless their rescue was going to show up in the next couple hours, and he's not sure…

He knows he got a message out after the teleportation. It sent, he saw it. But he has no idea if anyone was still close enough to get it, or whether it was jammed, or hell, whether anyone even paid attention to it in the middle of that mess they got dragged away from. Then they got blasted out of the sky, presumably hooked into the gravity of this planet so they didn't just spin off into space. He remembers trying to send a distress call, but everything was so fucked, and the screen of the console was cracked and fritzing even where it wasn't blaring warnings at him, and… He has no idea. He has no idea whether anything got sent. He has no idea if anyone knows where they are.

Bruce will come, though. He has to. He always does.

Jason breathes in, leaning his weight a little harder into the press of his hands over that wound. Tries not to listen to the little voice in the back of his head.

_Almost_ always.

"How do you think the fight went?" he asks, to distract himself.

Slade's eye cracks open, peering down past the grit of his teeth.

“Badly,” is his succinct answer. “You Bats have an annoying tendency to survive anything, though.” He waves one hand in Jason’s direction. “Case in point.”

"That's not—" Jason cuts himself off, shaking his head. "I'm probably not the person you want to point to if you're talking about surviving."

Slade just snorts, then hisses slightly, fingers scraping over the rubble on his other side. He takes a shallow breath, and grunts out, “Still breathing, aren’t you?”

More like breathing _again_, but… Actually, how _did _he survive the crash? The ship was already coming apart as they were falling, he remembers the hiss of air being sucked out of the first cracks, underneath the blare of the alarms. He remembers Slade grabbing him, dragging him away from the console. Something exploded, he thinks, because he remembers getting blown back and hitting _something_, real hard, but not much past that.

Which means… He didn’t make it on his own. This wasn’t luck.

“You saved my life,” Jason concludes, slowly. When he lifts his gaze from the jacket, Slade’s watching him, expression not offering any confirmation or denial of the fact. It has to be a fact, though. How else does he actually wake up after the crash of a spaceship he was unconscious for, and end up right on top of Slade? “That have anything to do with why your fancy suit isn't working?”

Slade stares him down, but finally huffs and settles back, gaze flicking up towards the sky. “Didn’t do it for you, kid. Don’t get any ideas.”

He snorts. “Pretty sure getting ideas is in the job description. Why did you do it, then? Seems like a big price to pay; wrecking your suit to save someone you barely know.”

“Grayson would be a pain in my ass the rest of my life if I let you die,” Slade grumbles, eye shutting. “Your friends are more likely to show up for you, too. Rather not let my ticket out of here end up in a grave.”

“Fair enough." He thinks about the pieces of it all that he remembers. It wasn't long, he's sure about that. Teleportation, impact, freefall; all very rapid. "So, you thought all that through before we crashed?”

“I’m not as slow-witted as some."

Jason rolls his eyes. Yeah, sure. All logical and rational, absolutely no instincts or automatic reaction involved. Slade's not wrong, though, he does have a better chance of getting rescued from this planet if Jason's still here; hero community tends to be a little more into rescuing its members than the villain one. Wouldn't help that Slade's not exactly on either side, precisely. Probably most people would leave him to work it out on his own.

Dick might not. Jason has a hard time believing that he'd actively try and hunt Slade down if he thought he needed rescuing, but if there was a clue right in his face he'd follow it as far as he needed to. Of course he would. Golden boy never could leave anyone in trouble, even if they deserved it.

"Well," he detours, dragging his mind away from all that, "good news is that if the air here is toxic, it's not that bad. Seems like we can breath."

"Or it'll kill us slowly," is Slade's contribution.

Jason glares, even though Slade's eye is still closed. "Yeah, that's what I meant by not that bad. I'll take slow poisoning over asphyxiation, thanks. Gives us a chance, at least." He exhales, shakes his head and pulls to mind all that old survival training. It's not _totally _applicable — alien planets mostly weren't on the agenda back when he was young enough to still be getting lectures — but some of the same rules must apply. Like, "There's probably some stuff in the wreckage that'll still work, but for now we should focus on getting away from it. If there are any sentient creatures in this place, this is a big old beacon. We don't want to find out whether they're friendly while we're in this condition."

Slade's eye cracks open. "You're not the only one that had wilderness survival training, kid. I know what the priorities are."

His lip curls back before he's given it permission to. "Yeah? Cause I figured that maybe as a superhuman your priorities were a little different than mine. Like, say, how soon you'll need water, or how much you care about shelter." Slade's eye is narrowed now, mouth in a flat line. Jason swallows the growl building in his throat back down, but leaves his teeth bared. "I don't need you being a pessimistic asshole about everything, Slade, I need you _helpful_. So can you stop being a posturing, bastard alpha for two minutes, or am I better off on my own?"

Unlike him, Slade doesn’t hold back on his growl. It’s low and rumbling, and seems to make the very air vibrate. “Watch your tone, kid.”

“Or you’ll what? Bleed on me?” Jason snorts, despite knowing Slade will be back up on his feet very soon and he probably shouldn’t antagonise him too much. He refuses to let any full-of-themselves alpha make him keep his mouth shut. “You know I’ve got a valid point.”

“Yes, you’re as full of them as your big brother.” Slade sighs, then rolls his eye. “Fine, if it’ll stop you whining. Go ahead, tell me what I already know.”

Jason doesn’t miss that the reference to Dick is as much a dig at him as what followed it. Always lovely to be compared.

“Well, like I said,” he grits his teeth tighter, “Our first priority is getting away from the wreckage until we’re sure it’s not going to explode on us. So when you feel like you can stand, let me know.”

"When I can stand, or when I can carry you?" Slade retaliates, watching him with just the faintest hint of a snarl. "You're not walking anywhere on that leg, unless you're playing it up for sympathy."

Somewhere between being pissed at Slade and trying to figure out what to do next, Jason had forgotten about his leg. But now the pain of it comes flying back to him at the reminder and he can’t help but wince.

“You don’t have to carry me. Just so long as I can lean on you.”

"So we can move at a snail's pace? Might as well just let you crawl; at least one of us would get somewhere at a decent speed."

Jason curls his lip tighter, “Fuck you, Slade,” and temper finally fraying, pushes his hands and his jacket down harder against Slade’s still healing wound.

The sound Slade makes in response is akin to that of an angry bear, deep and terrifying. Jason barely has time to process it before the repercussions hit him, in the form of a powerful hand seizing him by the neck and — in a move he didn’t yet think Slade was capable of — yanking him down. Then the world spins for a moment as Slade heaves him, and himself, over, finally coming to a rest half-on-top of Jason with his teeth only inches from his face.

“Fuck!”

“You want to try that again, boy?” Slade snaps said teeth at him. There’s a wheeze of pain beneath the words, but his strength is still implacable. “Think it was clever?”

"Get _off_ me!" he tries to snarl, but the hand at his throat tightens and cuts it off to a gasp halfway through. He grabs at Slade's wrist and shoulder, trying to pry him away, but it might as well be a boulder on top of him for all the good it does.

The fingers compress, reducing him to strained, desperate drags for air as Slade growls. His feet scrape the ground, but his legs are pinned under Slade's mass and he's too heavy to move. He needs to— Pressure points, sensitive spots; Slade's still mostly human, he'll hurt just like anyone else. If he can get a decent strike at his neck, or ear, or another shot at the wound…

A hand closes on one of his wrists. Before he can fully react it's already been dragged away from Slade's shoulder, and fingers are spreading wide to press his wrists together and — _Jesus_, big hands — clamp down on both of them.

“Let me make one thing clear to you, boy,” Slade says, tightening his grip on his neck, “You’re not in charge here. I am. And if you ever try anything like that with me again, I will put you down. Understand?”

Jason hisses, because Slade is absolutely not the one in charge here. Just because he’s physically stronger and an alpha doesn’t mean he gets to throw his weight around. Jason knows what his kind is like, give them even an inch and they’ll take a mile, and he—

His vision darkens for a moment under the unyielding grip of Slade’s fingers. Maybe now isn’t the wisest time to try and make that point, given how he seems determined to choke Jason into unconsciousness if he has to.

Swallowing hard and giving into both reason and instinct for a moment, Jason attempts a nod. His chin doesn't have much room to move, but Slade's fingers ease a bit regardless, so it must have come through.

"Good," Slade praises, as Jason gasps in a breath. "Now how about you say it for me? Just to make sure we understand each other."

Son of a…

Jason’s cheeks burn as he glares up at him, and Slade smiles slightly in return. “Well?”

He decides right then and there that Dick no longer has dibs on Deathstroke as an arch enemy, Jason is taking them from him. Just like he’s going to take Slade’s balls from him once they’re out of this mess. He hates this shit. This ugly, alpha condescension, right after a paltry drop of praise. It makes his stomach turn in uncomfortable, contradicting ways, and he hates it.

“I understand,” he wheezes.

Slade lets go of his neck, letting him suck in a deeper breath before he says, “Good boy. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

For a second, Jason sees red. He wants nothing more than to claw the skin right off that fucking smirk, _force_ those words back down Slade's throat and make him choke on them. A snarl rises in his throat, but before he can voice it Slade's hand tightens around his wrists, pinning them a little more securely. The haze clears slightly, and when Jason takes a real look at Slade's expression it's intently focused, as well as devoid of the amusement he expects. No smirk, nothing.

The son of a bitch is baiting him.

Jason bares his teeth instead of snarling outright, and keeps everything he wants to say locked behind the barrier of his teeth. It's not going to get him anywhere. He's pinned, hurt, and even wounded Slade's a lot stronger than he is, and arguably still just as fast. It's hard to force down the voice in the back of his head that says to fight, claw, and do everything in his power to never be at the mercy of anyone else ever again. But slowly, pushing it down to the pit of his stomach, he does it anyway.

_Later_, he comforts himself with. Revenge, and all that, can come later. Right now he just needs to get out of this situation, and if that means holding his tongue for a minute, then that's what he has to do. When he has a real chance, when Slade drops his guard, he'll pay every second of silence back. With interest.

Slade watches him another moment, apparently considering his expression, then snorts and pulls back, letting go of his wrists. He rolls off him, leaving Jason to rub at the new soreness of his wrists and throat as soon as he can move. Not to mention his leg, which hurts all the more at having had Slade lay on it.

“So,” Slade grunts, “This is off to a good start.”

Still silently fuming, Jason grabs his bloodstained jacket and throws it in his face.

* * *

Eventually, they do manage to get off the ship. Albeit with a great deal more squabbling before Jason finally consents to being carried out on Slade’s back.

The alien world they’ve landed on is not completely un-earthlike. In that the sky is blue and there are clouds in it, though the soil beneath their feet is closer to red than brown. There are plants too, that he can see, with green leaves and silver bark, and above their heads creatures that resemble four-winged lizards nervously flutter about the crash site, proving that at least some kind of life manages to thrive here.

“Think they’re edible?” Jason asks Slade.

Slade grunts underneath him. “I’m more concerned about water than food right now.”

“There should be some left on the ship, if the tanks didn’t burst.”

Stopping by a large flat rock that sits half-sunken into the ground, Slade lets Jason slide off his back before pushing him to sit on it. “If.”

They wait two hours for the ship to cool down before venturing back to it. Or at least, Slade does. Jason’s leg is still slowing him down, so Slade leaves him with a gun before striding back there alone to scavenge as much useful material as he can. Totally unfair that he's just _fine_, after a wound like that, and Jason's stuck waiting just because of some wrench of a muscle. Unfair, but grudgingly he can also admit it's useful. Not that he's going to say that out loud.

Thankfully, Slade does come back with water, as well as a few ration packs, a first aid kit and some emergency blankets.

“That’s it?” Jason asks.

“That’s it,” Slade replies, “Ship wasn’t exactly stocked with the idea of a long term voyage, and the crash wrecked a lot of what there was.”

“What about the communications equipment?”

“Console’s pretty frazzled. You’d know if it’s salvageable better than me.”

Jason grimaces, “I’ll take a look at it later.” He accepts the bottle of water Slade hands to him with relief. “So what now, oh wise leader?”

Slade can’t miss his sarcasm, but he doesn’t acknowledge it either. “We find shelter, get some rest. Everything else can wait till tomorrow." He grunts, eyes the sky. "Assuming that this planet has day and night cycles. Sun seems to be moving, at least."

Jason shudders. He hates to play into stereotypes about being a Bat, but the idea of a world without night sounds like hell to him.

Slade snorts. "Relax. I'm sure you'll find some shadow to skulk in, even if it doesn't."

“Oh, fuck you.”

A slow smirk spreads over Slade’s face as he says it. “Only if you ask nicely, kid.”

Unbelievable. They just got flung through space, crashed on an alien planet, almost _died_, and he's…

“You even try to touch me,” Jason snarls, “And I’ll rip your dick off.”

Slade eyes him for a moment, smirk fading. There's another beat of silence, before he says, "I don't rape, kid. You don't have to worry about that."

It's low, sincere as far as Jason can read, but he can't shake the anxiety or the tight twists of his stomach at just the idea. "Good," he snaps, and bares his teeth, hating with sudden fury that Slade's standing over him, trapping him on the rock. "Cause if you try anything, or touch me, I'll make sure you don't get the chance to do it again. Whatever it costs. Got it?"

As if realising that, Slade takes a step back away from him, raising his hands at the same time in a peacemaking gesture. “Yes, you’ve made your point very clear. No touching.”

Jason sags back a little in relief. He knows what he just did was probably an overreaction, but he still feels better for it. Slade may have a reputation for keeping his word, which is better than most alphas, but he is still an alpha in the end. Trapped alone here on an alien planet with him, Jason would much rather be safe than sorry. He’s experienced too much of what happens to omegas who aren’t to do otherwise.

“Of course, that’s going to make it rather difficult for me to carry you out to whatever shelter I find from here now. Unless you’re willing to make an exception for that?”

Jason looks up, to where Slade’s mouth is curling up into a smirk again. He scowls at him. “Is being an ass your default setting, or just a special mode I’ve unlocked?”

Slade steps forward, unabashed, and offers him a hand up off the rock. “I think you know.”

“Yeah,” Jason sighs, taking it, “I think I do.”

He really hopes someone comes to rescue them soon.

**Author's Note:**

> [Fire's tumblr](https://firefrightfic.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [Skali's tumblr](https://skalidra.tumblr.com/)


End file.
